The
Easterhouse
PhoenixImpressive
sculpture
on
Easterhouse
Road by
Andy
Scott.
The
phoenix
rising
from the
ashes is
supposed
to
represent
regeneration
of this
poverty-stricken
region
of
Glasgow.

Easterhouseand its villages

The Villages

The area had a cluster of small
villages populated by the people who
worked in the local industries of
farming, mining, weaving and the canals.

In Timothy Pont's map and
manuscript of 1596 the area
where the late 19th century
village of Easterhouse later
developed was called 'Conflat'.
The term conflat derived
from corn/wheat flats - flat
land where wheat was
farmed.The William Forrest
map of 1816[calls the area of
the old village Wamnat.

The village of Easterhouse
was built from the late 19th
century in land owned by,
and south of, a farm of that
name, in the immediate area
around where Easterhouse
railway station stands. The
village was bounded to the
north by the Monkland Canal
and to the south, almost
continuously with, the
village of
Swinton. The villagers
worked in a number of
industries including the
canal, the stone quarry at
Auchinlea, coal mines at
Gartloch and Baillieston but
mainly in the surrounding
farms and estates as
agricultural worker

Easterhouse village, known to locals
as the Holy Land, was a mining
village, with small cottages on either
side of the street. Easterhouse Road was
the heart of the village, with general
stores and a bar, and even a piggery
where Rogerfield now stands.

The village was a favourite place for
childrens outings. The Co-op ran an
annual trip for children from the
South-side of Glasgow. They came in
horse-drawn carts as far as Riddrie, and
then a horse-drawn barge took them up
the canal to Easterhouse for a picnic.

Sunday School children from
Coatbridge arrived on hay wagons to play
games and races in the fields
surrounding the village. In winter,
local people went curling and skating on
Bishop Loch.

Swinton
Cross

Swinton and West Maryston had a
couple of shops, some run from dwelling
houses. There was a pump in the middle
of a field where people got their spring
water. There were no wash houses, and
people had to boil their clothes in a
big iron pot on a brick fire to clean
them.

West
Maryston from the Canal

When rebuilding of the area started
in the inter-war years, the authorities
decided to run-down Easterhouse village.
At this time, street lighting was being
introduced and roads which didnt get
this were effectively condemned

Easterhouse from canal

I wondered whether you would like to see
this picture of my Grandmother-in- law�s
home in a tenement on Easterhouse Road,
Easterhouse, taken in 1966. One of
Grandma�s sons lived in Whamflet Avenue,
then an unmade-up road near the canal.
The family name was Hannah. Aunt
Sarah lived in adjacent tenements, made
up of a room and kitchen. Grandma
brought up her sons, all four of them,
here, after their father, a miner died
of TB at an early age. The
chimney in the foreground belonged to
the shared wash house.Valerie Hannah Conwy
Wales

Carpet
Beater

100
years ago, people living in the
villages had none of the modern
appliances that make life easier
for us today. There were no
vacuum cleaners- people had to
take their rugs outside and use
a carpet beater to thrash out
the dust!

Iron

No one got
creases out of
their
Sunday-best
clothes using
electric irons.
Instead they
used flat irons,
heated over the
fire or filled
with hot coals
to warm them.

Stone Pigg

Imagine how cold it
would have been in
winter with no central
heating! People warmed
their beds with a brick
from the hearth, or used
stone pigs like this
one, filled with hot
water like the rubber
bottles we use today.

Local Industry

There are few districts which combine
so much of the attributes of country
life with the bustle and stir of
manufacturers; for the soil is dotted at
every little distance with the villas of
the aristocracy of Glasgow; with tall
chimneys of coal works, with belts of
thriving plantations and clumps of old
wood, with orchards, grassy holms, or
waving grain, and with the homely farm
steading or lonely dwelling of the
cotter Ordinance Gazeteer of Scotland
1884.

Farming

Much of Greater Easterhouse is built
on old farmland. Several farms were
either partially or completely taken
over by the housing schemes that were
built in the 1950s. All that remains of
most of them are their names, which were
given to the new streets. You might
still find clumps of trees which
surrounded the farm houses today.

There was a farm in the grounds of
Gartloch Hospital, as it was believed
mental patients benefited from the
theraputic effects of working there. It
provided milk, butter, oatmeal, eggs and
meat form its own abattoir to the
hospital, and also later to the Royal
Infirmary, the Southern General, and
Barlinnie and Low Moss prisons.

Over 100 years ago the best farms had
a four-year crop rotation. One year the
farmer would grow potatoes, the next
turnips, the next oats and then the
last, wheat. Then the cycle would begin
all over again.

Many of the farms owned livestock
such as cattle or poultry. Imagine how
the farmers must have felt watching the
new housing estates creeping closer to
their land? One poor man in the 1960s
had 100 of his hens stolen. They were
found with their heads chopped off in a
field the next day.

Amid the modern houses, there are
still people farming the land in Greater
Easterhouse today.

Coal Mining

Coal has been mined in Easterhouse
for hundreds of years. The monks of
Newbattle Abbey were given much of the
land in what is now Greater Easterhouse
in the 12th Century by King Malcom IV.
They were amongst the earliest coal
miners in Scotland.

250 years ago, coal cropped out, or
became exposed here. It was because the
coal seams were so close to the surface
that the district was one of the first
to mine coal in Scotland. At that time,
miners would have worked in cramped
conditions in Bell Pits.

Coal Mining became a major local
industry in 1790 with the opening of the
Monkland Canal. It could then be sent to
Glasgow, rather than just catering for
local needs. Old maps show around 30
pits around Ballieston at that time.
Coal was also mined at Dungeonhill,
Provanhall and Bishop Loch. The industry
brought a new population to the
district, many coming from Ireland to
work in the pits.

Working conditions were very poor for
the coal miners working in Greater
Easterhouses pits. Many of the mines
were difficult to work and were
vulnerable to dangerous flooding. Wages
were low and families survived on very
basic staples as soup, potatoes, sour
milk, bread and porridge.

Before the introduction of motorised
pulley systems, pit ponies pulled the
heavy coal trucks through the mines.
Many would live down the pit for fifty
weeks of the year, never seeing
daylight.

Weaving

Over two hundred years ago flax was
grown in the area for linen making. Some
farms grew 20-30 acres of the crop a
year. Swinton, West Maryston and
Ballieston were thriving weaving
villages.

At Wellhouse Farm, strips of linen
were laid out to bleach under the sun in
the fields. The weavers would then carry
the heavy rolls of linen on their
shoulders to Glasgow.

Flax growing died out around 150
years ago, when cotton became more
common.

The Monkland CanalIn 1769 magistrates in Glasgow
had to find a way to transport coal to
the city from the East. They decided to
build a waterway. They allocated the job
to James Watt who invented the Steam
Engine. Ten miles were constructed when
the company found itself in difficulty
financially and it sold out to William
Stirling & Son who owned Drumpeller
Estate. They completed the waterway in
1790.

Barges carrying coal and steel were
running daily into the city. Its profits
grew after 1825 when the great iron
works at Calder, Gartsherrie, Dundyvan
and Langloan were built.

The Monkland Canal became known as
The Killer Canal. Many people drowned
there through the years. This
Certificate of Bravery was awarded to
for his rescue of a child who had fallen
in the water in

In May 1964 work began filling in the
canal at a cost of 300,000. The canal
is now part of the M8 motorway which
opened on June 1973.

In 1807 passengers were ferried along
the canal in boats drawn by horses. For
over 160 years barges used the canal. It
was closed to shipping in 1952.The Dairy FarmsChildren were sent from the
villages to the local farms to collect
milk. If you had lived in Easterhouse
village, the soor milk cairt would
have delivered butter to you twice a
week from Dungeonhill Farm.

Weaving ShuttlesThese are shuttles, which were
traditionally used in cloth weaving. Old
accounts tell how many local people as
children had watched the weavers at
work, fascinated by the clickety clack
of the shuttles

Trondra Local
History Project

TheTrondra
Local History Groupcame together in
2000, where they
began a local
investigations
module at John
Wheatley College.
They approached the
Open Museum, and
suggested working on
an exhibition about
their local
community.

The resulting
exhibition Hidden
History, Greater
Easterhouse More
Than Just a Scheme
tells the story of
Greater Easterhouse
from its earliest
origins, 9000 years
ago, to the rapidly
changing face of the
area and features
local history of the
area, the history of
Provanhall, its
royal connections
and ghostly
residents.